What’s on Charlie Rose:
Tonight: David Kilcullen, Philip Mudd, David Ignatius and more Yesterday: Phil Jackson and Richard Anderson 5/21: Andrew Revkin, Peter Baker, David Paulison and more 5/20: Farnaz Fassihi, Ben Wedeman, Tung Chee Hwa and more 5/17: Karen Tumulty, Al Hunt, Jessica Yellin and more
with Arthur Penn, David Brown, Richard Holbrooke and more on Dec 31, 2010
with Louis Auchincloss on Oct 24, 1997
Louis Auchincloss is a prolific American novelist, historian, and essayist. Born in New York City, he grew up in the privileged classes about whom he would write, attending Groton, and Yale University, where he was editor of the “Yale Literary Magazine”, and a member of Scroll and Key Society. After serving in the Navy in World War II, Auchincloss wondered whether to become a writer or a lawyer; finally, he realised both (although he did not complete his undergraduate studies at Yale, he was admitted to and attended law school at the University of Virginia), writing a fiction book a year while working as a wills and trusts attorney with Hawkins, Delafield & Wood.
Among Auchincloss’s best-known books are the multi-generational sagas “The House of Five Talents”; “Portrait in Brownstone”; “East Side Story”; “The Rector of Justin”, the tale of the beloved headmaster of a school like Groton trying to deal with changing times; and “The Embezzler”, a look at white-collar crime. Auchincloss has acknowledged patterning his writing after that of Henry James and Edith Wharton.
Auchincloss was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1965. He received the National Medal of Arts in 2005.
